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Sweden Bans Yoghurt From IKEA Stores
Sweden took an unprecedented step in its diplomatic ties with Turkey by banning the sale of yoghurt in all IKEA stores. Stockholm said it would cancel the moratorium when Ankara finally accepts its NATO membership bid.
Turkey and Hungary are now the only NATO members not to have approved Sweden and Finland’s membership applications. Sweden considers some of the demands listed by Turkey to be unreasonable and has retorted with its own asks.
“In addition to NATO membership, we are also asking that social media influencer ‘Salt Bae’ be extradited to Sweden, so that he can face justice,” a Swedish government spokesperson revealed, referring to the hated Turkish meat-ruiner and Messi-botherer.
To concentrate minds in Ankara, Sweden has also banned yoghurt from every IKEA store. This prompted a response in Athens, as the government summoned the Swedish ambassador and demanded an explanation.
Turkey is not taking the ban lying down and has tagged another request on to a growing list of demands. Finland must rename saunas ‘Finnish hammam’ in order to get its NATO wishes. Turkey is also contemplating lodging a complaint at the WTO over meatballs, which it claims is a Turkish invention, despite IKEA's popularising of the dish.
The saga continues.
Ukraine's Prime Minister Is Acting Weirdly
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal sparked worries among his advisors this week as the head of government appeared to forget how to speak Ukrainian and rambled on incoherently about European values.
Top army officials first suspected something was amiss with Shmyhal when he insisted on speaking to them in broken English, gesticulating wildly with his hands. “He’s normally so articulate and restrained,” commented one general.
Fears for the prime minister’s well-being were stepped up a notch when he started rambling incoherently about “reclaiming European democracy” and “ensuring that we establish strategic autonomy within a sphere of trust and understanding”.
Shmyhal’s defence advisor was shocked when the prime minister sat down in her chair, noting that “if he didn’t look exactly like Mr Shmyhal, I’d swear he was a different person.” Medical professionals have now been consulted but no statement has been released yet.
Scholz’s Tank Games Come Undone
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spent the entire week rejecting calls for German-built tanks to be shipped to Ukraine, insisting on unrealistic provisos for their delivery and finally admitting what was really the issue preventing Leopard 2 deployment: there aren't any.
Scholz has infuriated the international community by dragging his feet and withholding permission for partner countries to ship their Leopard tanks to help Ukraine’s war effort.
Earlier this week, he said that Germany would only approve their deployment if US President Joe Biden agreed to come to his birthday party.“The President has already told the Chancellor that he has another party that day and cannot make it,” said the White House in a quickly-issued statement.
Running out of excuses and with political pressure building up, Scholz has now had to admit the real reason why Germany cannot deliver its own Leopards to Ukraine: there are no Leopards.
“It got out of control so quickly, I didn’t know what to do. People kept asking ‘where are the Leopards?’, ‘What have you done with the Leopards?’, ‘When are you delivering the Leopards?’ and I panicked,” Scholz confessed live on TV.
“We sold all the tanks years ago and no one bothered to replace them. I thought if I stalled long enough we could build some more but apparently it takes months to even repair these things, let alone construct new ones,” the chancellor said.
World leaders meeting in Davos were seen rolling their eyes when the news broke. Many were heard saying that it was “not surprising”, as Germany continues to add bungle after blunder to its rap sheet of foreign policy gaffes.
